While reading a book by a Jesuit priest, F.M. De Zulueta, I came across the following discussion of the Holy Oil to be used in extreme unction (Last Rites), and the strict rules concerning such. One was reminded of the various rules and regulations about the nature of the oil and how to properly bless such in the Latter-day Saint tradition as such would be a sacred substance and no longer common or “profane,” serving an important, sacred purpose:
The ‘Holy Oil.—For validly anointing, the oil of the sick must be olive oil, and, moreover (in the Latin rite), be consecrated by a Bishop. For lawful anointing, it must have been consecrated by the Bishop of the diocese, or, if the see be vacant, by the neighbouring Bishop. The view that a priest can consecrate the oil, besides having been censured by Pope Paul V. as ‘rash’ and ‘bordering upon error,’ has been expressly disallowed in an answer of the Holy Office, May 15, 1878: ‘Oil by a priest is useless matter for administering the Sacrament of Extreme Unction, and cannot be employed even in a case of extreme necessity.’ This decision, of course, supposes that the priest has no faculty to bless holy oil from the Holy See. For the Sovereign Pontiff can give this power. Then, in the (Catholic) Greek Church, priests give the Last Unction with oil blessed by themselves. It is not certain that some other kind of duly consecrated oil—e.g., ‘oil of catechumens,’ would not serve. Consequently, it may lawfully be used in a sudden emergency—at all events, ‘conditionally.’
Though old holy oil is valid, for lawfulness (except in case of necessity) the oil must be new—i.e., have been consecrated in the current ecclesiastical year: that is to say, on the previous Maundy Thursday. (F.M. De Zulueta, Letters on Christian Doctrine (Second Series), Part II, Volume III [5th ed.; London: Burns Oates and Washbourne Ltd, 1921], 19)
For a book-length treatment of sacred oil in various traditions, see:
The Oil of Gladness: Anointing in the Christian Tradition, eds. Martin Dudley and Geoffrey Rowell (Liturgical Press, 1993)
